The present disclosure relates generally to medical devices and, more particularly, to medical sensors with strain relief properties that may be applied to a patient's ear for sensing physiological parameters.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In the field of healthcare, caregivers (e.g., doctors and other healthcare professionals) often desire to monitor certain physiological characteristics of their patients. Accordingly, a wide variety of devices have been developed for monitoring many such characteristics of a patient. Such devices provide doctors and other healthcare personnel with the information they need to provide the best possible healthcare for their patients. As a result, such monitoring devices have become an indispensable part of modern medicine.
One technique for monitoring certain physiological characteristics of a patient is commonly referred to as pulse oximetry, and the devices built based upon pulse oximetry techniques are commonly referred to as pulse oximeters. Pulse oximetry may be used to measure various blood flow characteristics, such as the blood-oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in arterial blood, the volume of individual blood pulsations supplying the tissue, and/or the rate of blood pulsations corresponding to each heartbeat of a patient.
Pulse oximetry sensors, as well as other types of non-invasive optical sensors, transmit light through a patient's tissue and photoelectrically detect the absorption and/or scattering of the transmitted light in such tissue. One or more physiological characteristics may then be calculated based upon the amount of light absorbed or scattered. More specifically, the light passed through the tissue is typically selected to be of one or more wavelengths that may be absorbed or scattered by the blood in an amount correlative to the amount of the blood constituent present in the blood. The amount of light absorbed and/or scattered may then be used to estimate the amount of blood constituent in the tissue using various algorithms.
Accurate sensor measurements depend on the secure placement of the sensor on the desired measurement site on a patient. For example, a poor fit of the sensor with the tissue may allow ambient light to reach the photodetecting elements of the sensor, which may introduce error into the measurements. In addition, a poorly conforming sensor may become dislodged. To that end, sensors are manufactured with patient anatomy in mind. That is, sensors may be designed for a particular tissue placement site, e.g., a finger, and often for a particular type or size of patient, e.g., an adult. However, in critical care situations, an operator may apply a finger sensor to a patient's ear, which may result in inaccurate sensor measurements.